Dana, Richard Henry, 1815-1882; Sailors; Seafaring life; Voyages and travels
dark) all hands were called, and sent aloft, in a violent squall
of hail and rain, to take in sail. We had now all got on our ``Cape
Horn rig,''-- thick boots, southwesters coming down over our neck
and ears, thick trousers and jackets, and some with oil-cloth suits
over all. Mittens, too, we wore on deck, but it would not do to go
aloft with them, as, being wet and stiff, they might let a man
slip overboard, for all the hold he could get upon a rope: so we
were obliged to work with bare hands, which, as well as our faces,
were often cut with the hailstones, which fell thick and large.
Our ship was now all cased with ice,-- hull, spars, and standing
rigging; and the running rigging so stiff that we could hardly
bend it so as to belay it, or, still less, take a knot with it;
and the sails frozen. One at a time (for it was a long piece of
work and required many hands) we furled the courses, mizzen
topsail, and fore-topmast staysail, and close-reefed the fore and
main topsails, and hove the ship to under the fore, with the main
hauled up by the clew-lines and buntlines, and ready to be sheeted
home, if we found it necessary to make sail to get to windward of
an ice island. A regular lookout was then set, and kept by each
watch in turn, until the morning. It was a tedious and anxious
night. It blew hard the whole time, and there was an almost
constant driving of either rain, hail, or snow. In addition to
this, it was ``as thick as muck,'' and the ice was all about us.
The captain was on deck nearly the whole night, and kept the cook
in the galley, with a roaring fire, to make coffee for him, which
he took every few hours, and once or twice gave a little to his
officers; but not a drop of anything was there for the crew. The
captain, who sleeps all the daytime, and comes and goes at night
as he chooses, can have his brandy-and-water in the cabin, and his
hot coffee at the galley; while Jack, who has to stand through
everything, and work in wet and cold, can have nothing to wet his
lips or warm his stomach. This was a ``temperance ship'' by her
articles, and, like too many such ships, the temperance was all in
the forecastle. The sailor, who only takes his one glass as it is
dealt out to him, is in danger of being drunk; while the captain,
upon whose self-possession and cool judgment the lives of all
depend, may be trusted with any amount, to drink at his will.
Sailors will never be convinced that rum is a dangerous thing by
taking it away from them and giving it to the officers; nor can
they see a friend in that temperance which takes from them what
they have always had, and gives them nothing in the place of it.
By seeing it allowed to their officers, they will not be convinced
that it is taken from them for their good; and by receiving
nothing in its place they will not believe that it is done in
kindness. On the contrary, many of them look upon the change as a
new instrument of tyranny. Not that they prefer rum. I never knew
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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